


beyond the highest point

by madin456



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Growing Up, Introspection, Volleyball, bird metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25670701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madin456/pseuds/madin456
Summary: Hinata Shouyou throughout the years, learning to fly.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 19





	beyond the highest point

**Author's Note:**

> i rewatched all of hq in the span of a week. help.
> 
> hinata is not one of my favourite characters in hq but furudate is a god and i am a slave to my emotions. sorry for all the bird metaphors. this is probably the closest thing to a love letter i will ever write.

“Because people don’t have wings… we look for ways to fly.”  
—Haruichi Furudate, 2012-2020.

The Miyagi prefecture in Japan is located on the countryside and for the first ten years of his life, Hinata Shouyou grows up sheltered. His mom is kind and caring and she packs him homemade lunches every day, sending him off to school with a hug. His sister is full of energy and the way she looks up to him is like how sunflowers stretch toward the light in summertime, always wanting to wrap her petal-soft hands around his and follow in his footsteps. Her spirit is contagious and it makes him smile. He feels like a big brother. He is happy.

The first crack of the shell that surrounds his perfect, quiet life happens when he is biking past a storefront and hears the cackling of TV static. On the screen, the pixels clear and he sees the wooden floors of a gym, bleachers filled with people who are all watching, staring, just like he is. Holding their breaths.

There is a boy, running across the court, shoes squeaking as he pushes off the ground. He is small and everyone else around him is big, tall shadows looming over him like a wall. When he jumps, though, he bends gravity to his will and holds the entire universe under the soles of his feet. He sprouts wings on his back and feathers in his hair, fearless in a way that’s inspiring, and charges straight toward the sun.

In that moment, he is anything but little.

 _Karasuno High School, Boys Volleyball Team,_ the caption reads. The camera zooms in on the boy and the number 10 printed on his jersey, stadium lights shining down with brilliant intensity. On his bike, Hinata grips the handlebars just a little bit tighter. He can’t peel his eyes away.

As it is, that’s all it takes for him to fall. The effect is instantaneous; he carves out a piece of his heart and dedicates it to a sport called volleyball, teetering on the edge of obsession. The edge of love.

Hinata sees a boy suspended in the air and spends the next few years learning how to fly.

.

The early days of a hatchling’s life are crucial to its growth; during this period of time, it is still weak and rough around the edges and entirely dependent on its guardians. When Hinata joins the Karasuno volleyball team, he is lacking a lot of the technical skills that everyone else seems to have already mastered. He fumbles around on his feet, missing serves and receives in large numbers, just barely making up for them with his speed and stamina.

It’s frustrating. He can’t help but want the results immediately, desire coiling inside him with every breath he takes. But improvement comes in the form of a slow, gradual pace—a steady heartbeat. Which is to say: building a home from scratch is different than simply finding a home that already exists.

For one, it is a lot more work, but also a lot more rewarding. Hinata chooses the people in his immediate circle as carefully as a bird chooses twigs for its nest and it’s not always easy, often a lifelong pursuit, but he learns to give and take. Find compromises.

Twelve players make up a team. They practice together; they get mad, as anyone does; they celebrate each other’s successes as their own. With familiarity comes confidence and growth, and Hinata slowly but surely finds his footing again. He’s still a far cry from being a _little giant_ , but the gap closes every time he lands a spike or grazes a hand against an incoming ball.

It takes a while. These kinds of things always do. But eventually, over time, he starts referring to the volleyball team as his family, Karasuno High School as his home, and thinks: it’s a start.

.

Flying doesn’t come easily, not even to birds.

The way they learn to soar is like this: young fledglings will throw themselves off a cliff, away from the safety of their nest, and try to ride the current while catching wind between their feathers. It can take days, weeks, before they manage to do it properly, but when they finally spread their wings and find themselves going up instead of down for the first time, they will be chasing that feeling for the rest of their lives. It’s worth it.

In that aspect, Hinata is very much the same: he calls for tosses in an otherwise empty volleyball court until he is worn out and tired, muscles aching, but feeling more alive than he’s ever felt. He beats the training into his body by force, over and over again until he’s sure that he moves more on instinct than anything else. Only in his half delirious state can he taste the lingering flavours of success on his tongue—in reach but not quite within his grasp yet.

It’s clear, then, in that moment.

He’s on the precipice of something worthwhile.

.

Don’t you know?

Volleyball is a sport where you are always looking up.

.

Mid-air battles last no more than a few seconds at most. Hinata realizes this the hard way, a moment too late, his spike bouncing back against the strong arms of a blocker. This kind of shock is one that he hasn’t experienced before, not to this extent, and everything he knows shatters at once. The echoes of loss ring in his ears in the form of a sharp whistle blown by the referee as he comes crashing down on the hard gym floor. It’s almost enough to break him, if he lets it.

He doesn’t let it. Instead, he grits his teeth and writes a vow in the spaces between his fingers where the ball had slipped through earlier, clenching them into a fist. He will change. He will continue to evolve. And, because he is outrageously persistent and ridiculously stubborn and has fallen for this sport hard enough to give all of himself to it, Hinata gets back up. Dusts himself off. Keeps going, keeps pushing forward.

(The vow: he has played volleyball long enough now that it is the singular constant thing in his life, and he will continue to play for as long as there is any semblance of love in his heart.

He won’t be caged.)

Weeks later, during a training camp in Tokyo, he can see the fragmented pieces coming back together, restoring themselves into something closer to a whole. He holds these shards in his hands tenderly, like a secret, and carries his newfound knowledge with him onto the court against the top schools in the city.

It is here where he learns that wings don’t grow so much as they are stitched together, one by one, painfully and deliberately, until the only thing left for them to do is take flight. When Hinata matches the timing of his jump to Kageyama’s set, the ball hovering at the peak of a perfect arch, it feels inevitable. Like he’s on the brink of something grand. Like there’s no other choice for him except to extend his arm and hit the ball with his palm and hear the slam of a match point landing on the other side of the net.

Victory is an addictive thing.

.

The words _Karasuno will represent the Miyagi prefecture at the Spring High School Volleyball National Tournament_ doesn’t fully register in his mind until it hits him all at once as their bus pulls into the parking lot of the arena. Two years ago, his upperclassmen had come close to making it to this very stage but ultimately failed. Two years later, now, they are officially here—fallen crows airborne again, no longer the flightless birds people have come to expect. It can be said with confidence: they are strong.

Strangely, Hinata is not nervous like how he usually is before a match. He crosses the border that separates the rest of the world and the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium with his head held high, a sense of belonging settling into the gaps of his ribcage.

The ceiling of the arena is so far away that Hinata almost mistakes it for the vast, ever-expanding sky.

As the opposing team arrives and both sides begin their warm-ups, he takes a moment to simply breathe in the air, remembering everything that’s brought him this far. He thinks of being unborn, a little boy on a bike with the desire for more that the countryside of Miyagi couldn’t provide. He thinks of breaking open his shell and hatching into something bigger than his five-foot-three body could contain; thinks of birds building nests for themselves rather than fitting in a pre-existing one; thinks of the process of evolution and how growth doesn’t happen unless you seek out opportunities for yourself, always, constantly, with a certain kind of fierceness between your teeth.

He thinks of all his hard work finally paying off, building up to this right here—this very moment—and is glad that he never once allowed himself to give up.

In the stadium, he is free. The sun is a spotlight and Hinata Shouyou himself is Icarus, born to the sky. He looks up and wants to reach heights far beyond what his eyes can see.

So he does the only thing he knows how: he jumps.

He flies.

And in the end, he is grateful for a chance to spread his wings again.

**Author's Note:**

> i love hq with every fiber of my being ;-;
> 
> although i know most of what happens, i haven’t read the manga, so i'm not confident enough to write about anything that takes place after nationals. still, i hope this ending is okay.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/chaasiu) | [tumblr](https://madin-writes.tumblr.com/)


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